


Drowning

by Trojie



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: M/M, Minor Violence, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-08
Updated: 2010-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:56:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU of S2E07 - The Witchfinder. Merlin decides that the only way to keep Arthur from suspicion is to stop doing magic himself. This has serious consequences.</p><p>Originally written for the Merlin Kinkmeme prompt 'Arthur finds about Merlin's magic and is unsure of what to think. In an effort to placate him, Merlin goes cold turkey and stops using magic, but ends up going through serious withdrawal.' Some major departures from the prompt, however.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drowning

'Oh, and Merlin?'

Merlin, nerves singing like wire under tension, half-turns. Aredian smiles at him. 'Yes?'

'Ask his Highness Prince Arthur if he'd be so good as to answer a few of my questions, would you?' The Witchfinder's voice is gentle, almost sing-song, and smug.

'What do you want with Arthur?' Merlin asks, a lot faster and harder than he should have.

'My my, such protectiveness. Just to ask him a few questions. After all, I must be thorough, don't you agree?' The man's smile is oilier and more unctuous than the finest of Gaius's salves, and it crawls on Merlin's skin. 'After all, he may have unwittingly seen or heard evidence of a sorceror.' Merlin relaxes. 'Or consorted with one,' Aredian adds, and suddenly Merlin's spine is hot lead.

And once more, the smile oozes, pushing Merlin out the door.

If Aredian decides Arthur is guilty ... Merlin has seen how in thrall to the man Uther is. He's sure that he wouldn't let harm come to Arthur, but ...

Sure enough to risk it?

No. Never sure enough to risk Arthur. Not when he can just do the rest of his chores by hand instead of by magic. Merlin resigns himself to a lack of sleep and a good bit more manual labour over the next couple of weeks.

After all, when Aredian finds no evidence, he'll have to leave, and then things can go back to normal.

***

Merlin goes three days, steadfastly refusing to allow himself even the slightest glimmer of magic. He's stopped playing with his magic before, but he's always kept back that little dribble that flows through him every moment. This time, he can't risk it, can't be sure Aredian doesn't have some method of smelling out even the tiniest drop of power, so he clamps it all down to boil beneath his skin, and slowly, everything starts to hurt.

By the fourth day, he would scream in agony and lash out with fire and wind and water and the earth itself if it weren't for Aredian and his _questions_ and his snooping and his clawed fingers hooked into everyone Merlin cares about. Gaius is in the dungeons for the crime of hiding a bracelet and some nonsense about coughing up toads, Morgana is red-eyed and wild, terrified she will be next, Arthur is angry, nervous, confused, Gwen is reliving memories she should never have had to carry in the first place, of her father dragged away and killed in the night.

Merlin wants to strike Aredian down with lightning, burn him up hot and vengeful, but he can't. He can't.

_He can, he can, he can make everyone safe, he can burn righteous like the poker in the fire, cauterise, sterilise, make all clean, let healing start, he can -_

No.

Instead he cleans Arthur's armour with grit and sand and sweat from his brow and what little power there is to his arms. He can do this. He can protect Arthur this way. And every time he thinks just a little spark would strengthen this join, seal this link, he twists and shoves it down.

Arthur cannot have been consorting with a sorceror if there is no sorceror around. And if there is no magic done, there can be no sorceror.

***

'Merlin, I realise that I may regret asking, but what on _Earth_ is wrong with you? More than usual, I mean, of course.'

'Nothing,' Merlin mutters, picking up the platter he dropped not five seconds ago. Arthur is reclining majestically in his chair, dinner consumed and clearly feeling happy with the world, because when Arthur is happy with the world, his default occupation is picking at Merlin. Merlin fights down the urge to snarl as Arthur gets up and comes closer, apparently just for the fun of watching him grab bones up off the floor and scrape up potato skins. It would be so easy to just whisper, just _think_ and have the world dissolve in gold for the merest fraction of a second, and all this would be gone.

When Arthur claps him on the shoulder he almost loses it and slams his power out through his pores.

'Tell me,' Arthur says sternly, drawing Merlin to his feet and holding him up. His face softens. 'It's Gaius, isn't it.'

Merlin says nothing. The last thing he needs is for Arthur to get righteous and do something stupid, like confront Aredian. He thrusts away the spike of frustrated lust that strikes him at Arthur's touch - it's just a side-effect of what he's doing, he knows it is. The magic that glues Merlin to destiny glues him to Arthur as well. It is no surprise the magic wants him as much as it wants out.

That's all it is. A side-effect.

'I wish I could do something,' Arthur says, apparently not noticing the heat of Merlin's skin, the race of his pulse. 'But my father ...' He shakes his head once, forcefully, and turns away. Merlin stays standing, platter drooping from one hand, watching as Arthur slams his hand into the stone wall over the mantlepiece. 'He won't _listen_! People are right to fear him!'

Merlin still says nothing. What on Earth could he say, except to confess and damn everything, take what he wants, kill what he fears, be everything Arthur needs him to be all at once - _servant, weapon, confidante, friend, lover- no!_ Merlin doesn't notice Arthur's still speaking until his fingers snap before Merlin's eyes.

'Dammit, Merlin, say something! Gaius is in prison! You and I both know he's no sorceror. If Aredian has his way Gaius will die!'

'You think I don't know that?' Merlin demands. 'You think I don't care?'

Arthur glares at Merlin for a split second before turning away. 'No,' he says roughly. 'Of course I don't think that.'

***

Gaius, even after days in prison, knew what was wrong with Merlin as soon as he saw him, but didn't say a word until Arthur had retreated around the corner.

'You little fool,' he growls, shaking Merlin at the same time as he embraces him. 'You're making yourself sick.'

'You said not to use it,' Merlin says, pretending the sweat dripping down the side of his nose is a tear-track. Just talking about it makes it so much worse.

'I said not to _waste_ it, Merlin, I said not to use it _foolishly_. I never told you to suffocate yourself.' His voice is soft but so worried it breaks Merlin's heart; when it is Gaius in the dungeon and being tortured and treated with such indignity, it is still Merlin getting fussed over, even when it is all his fault.

'I'm fine,' Merlin says, rubbing his wrist over the back of his neck in an effort to soothe the roiling coil of magic that limns his spine in fire.

'Rubbish,' Gaius snaps. 'You're choking yourself off, Merlin, this isn't safe.'

'So how can I safely use it?' Merlin cries, incensed. 'I can't do chores, I can't use it to help you! What _can_ I do?' Gaius flinches. 'Aredian will come after me next when he realises you aren't the sorceror, and if he comes after me that'll only lead him to Arthur, and I can't-' his voice cracks, desert-dry, '-I can't risk that! If it were just you, or me, I'd throw down that wall now and we'd run! But I'll bet consorting with sorcerors is just as fierce a crime to Aredian as it is to Uther, even if you don't do it knowingly, and then what will I do? What else can I do, Gaius? Tell me!'

'I-' Gaius begins, before Arthur comes round the corner again.

'Time's up, Merlin,' he says, trying for gruff and not looking at Gaius. The old man sags back into his corner.

'Gaius?' Merlin says softly, trying to apologise for his outburst.

'Don't do anything foolish,' is all Gaius can say, before Arthur takes Merlin by the shoulder and steers him away. The friendliness of that gesture is belied by the tightness in Arthur's fingers as they dig into Merlin's shoulder - the innocence of it mocked by the way it turns Merlin's blood to fire as the magic looks for any way out - even lust.

'Come along, Merlin,' Arthur says whenever Merlin tries to escape. He's yanking them back up to his rooms. 'Come _along_,' he repeats sharply in front of other servants. At least they will think this is completely normal.

Arthur locks his door once they are inside, and advances on Merlin with a grim look on his face. 'Sit,' he orders, gesturing at his chair.

Merlin stands, defiant, while Arthur rummages in a drawer and pulls out a little bottle. 'This won't work if you're standing,' he points out when he turns around to see Merlin still upright.

'What won't?'

'_Sit_,' is Arthur's reply. 'Or, no, wait. Get on the bed.'

Merlin's vision screams white as he slams down the magic that wants _so much_ to respond to that order. Arthur must see something of it in his eyes, because he starts and stutters and then finally says, 'No, I mean - Gods, Merlin. Don't be such a _girl_.' He waves the bottle. 'This is a sleeping draught. You look like you need a dose.'

'I'm not taking it,' Merlin says. Taking a potion says he's not in control. He doesn't need _help_ with his magic. He has managed it since he was tiny, he's never needed the apothecary's handiwork before.

'You're being foolish,' Arthur says, and Merlin doesn't know if he knows how much like Gaius he sounds. 'You need to relax. You definitely need to sleep.'

'I'll sleep when I want to, thank you very much.'

'But you're not,' Arthur counters, whiplash fast.

'I- I ...'

'Merlin. Take the damned potion.' Arthur steps up close, and Gods, Merlin does not have the strength to fight this, this visceral reaction to Arthur's proximity brought on by the boiling magic and the sleep-deprivation and the sheer, hot, bruised feeling of being tied inside his own skin instead of threaded through his surroundings. He throws himself away, goes to the door and struggles with the lock.

Arthur takes him by the shoulder. Merlin _keens_, tries to dig himself through the solid oak door, doesn't even notice Arthur's speaking until his own name comes through the fog-

'-such an idiot, Merlin. I heard what you told Gaius, you were _shouting_, for Heaven's sake. We have to keep you out of Aredian's way, I've got a plan, but you need to be safe first-'

'Arthur-'

'If this is your idea of looking after me, poisoning yourself with your own magic, you're doing a piss-poor job of it, you know,' Arthur continues, the ghost of a smirk cutting across his face. 'I'm touched, of course, but still.'

'...Magic?'

'I'm not _blind_, Merlin,' is Arthur's only retort to that. He holds up the bottle one more time.

'No!' Merlin stares at Arthur, willing him to let this drop, to let Merlin go, before Merlin does something they'll both regret. He'll worry about where he slipped, how Arthur _found out_ later - for now, Aredian is still the danger, because Aredian is a potential danger to Arthur - whether or not Arthur will do anything to Merlin is beside the point.

_Let me out, let me out, let me out_, screams everything inside him, all the magic filling the blind-corners and back-alleys of his body. He starts to lose his grip on it, feels it trickling like the tiny runnels of water that bring down banks of earth and rock.

Arthur licks his lips, opens his mouth to say something - and that's when Merlin cannot hold it any longer. He feels himself about to blaze, opens his mouth to scream-

There's a knock at the door.

'My lord, the Witchfinder wishes to speak with you,' someone calls when Arthur does not open the door.

_'Stay here,'_ Arthur mouths at Merlin before he leaves.

***

Merlin paces by the window, the iron lattice and murky glass feeling like a cage. Arthur's been gone an hour, closeted for a whole hour with Aredian, and the worry is eating Merlin like a canker, growing and dividing inside him until it practically has a separate existence. His hands are shaking, _shaking_, and he can't stop biting his fingernails, although perhaps it's best, it's best to keep himself to himself, because everything he touches calls to his magic.

He is contemplating the courtyard through the dirty window, not quite touching the pane of glass nearest his face, just hovering near it, imagining how he would make it drip and melt away, when someone bursts into the room. He turns, thinking it's Arthur, but Gwen grabs him by the shoulders - _and the shock of it is guttural and raw, her touch strikes a deadly match in him somewhere_ \- a desperate look on her face.

'It's Arthur,' she says breathlessly. Of course it is. 'He's accused Aredian of lying,' she continues. 'He's in an audience with Uther right now, Merlin, you have to come at once.'

He shrugs her off and runs, glad of the dead leather of his boots beneath his feet keeping them from the stone of the castle floor, glad the doors in his way are all open so he does not have to touch their oaken panels, glad of the distraction of running, even.

'... has been producing nothing but false evidence since he arrived,' Arthur was saying as Merlin skidded into the audience chamber. 'The Witchfinder Aredian is nothing but a liar and a charlatan,' he finishes, ignoring the arrival of his manservant.

Aredian looks unconcerned, amused even. 'My lord,' he says, looking at Uther, 'Your son is seeking to divert your mind from the questions it no doubt harbours on the subject of his conduct this past year. Can it be coincidence that the moment I bring to your attention the pattern of his transgressions, he makes these wild accusations?'

'I haven't transgressed!' Arthur shouts, obviously tried beyond all patience. 'Father, you know I would never go against your laws-'

'But you have gone against his word, have you not?' Aredian says, smiling once more. 'Since taking on the boy Merlin as your servant, you have flouted your King's decree not once but several times. Merlin, who is, let us not forget, the apprentice of the traitor Gaius-'

'Merlin's no sorceror, if that's what you're getting at,' Arthur says, scoffing, as he has always done at such accusations, and Merlin now wonders, nails digging tight into his palm, how many of the times he knew he was lying when he said it.

_Burn him, burn Aredian, he threatens Arthur, he coils tight like the snake waiting to strike, do it now before he suspects, do it now-_ howls the power inside Merlin, the power that has never let Arthur hurt unavenged, has never struck unless it struck for Arthur, the power that must now lie dormant for the sake of Arthur's very life-

Must it?

... Mustn't it?

_Must_ it?

And slowly, finger by finger, Merlin's hands unclench, because he thinks, he _thinks_, he sees a way through. The magic sits up and begs like a dog that sees the master coming at last, but he cautions it, cautions _himself_ \- when did he start to think of his power as something separate? - that this must be secret, must be safe, cautious, careful, all the things he learnt from Gaius when he thought he wasn't paying attention, and slowly, slowly, he lets the magic trickle back.

He is glad he has managed to find a shadowy pillar to stand beside, because it bubbles and bursts and burns like orgasm, straight to his head and the tips of his fingers the second it is free, and it makes him reel and stumble. His hand, oh, his hand, it remembers how to be a weapon as well as a tool, it knows its part, comes slowly up and he has to force himself, like he's been forcing himself for however long now, not to do it. This must be controlled.

This must be invisible. No gestures.

He used to do magic without the gestures. Instinctive, unformed magic, he knows it was, and he learnt the movements of his hands and eyes like he imagines Arthur learnt to block and to parry and to thrust - turning brute force and flailing into precision and intent, but now he must regain his old methods overlain with new direction.

'It is plain to me,' Uther begins, interrupting the boiling argument about to erupt from Arthur, but Merlin cannot wait to hear what is plain to the king, because Arthur's treachery might be plain, Arthur's _sorcery_ might be plain, and so with nary a shiver or twitch of his fingers and with the barest of flickers from his eyes and not even a whisper on his tongue, he sends a bolt of magic, an avenging lance or a lancing scalpel, at Aredian.

The man gulps suddenly, coughs. His eyes search the room, light on Merlin, and he starts to point, only to clutch at his throat instead. He stumbles, and no-one goes to aid him.

Merlin savagely hopes Aredian likes how that feels, seeing as that's what he's done to Gaius, what he must have done to so many other people. The witchfinder is still gulping and choking, and it can't be long now. Merlin didn't, couldn't try for finesse.

When the toad finally falls from Aredian's lips, Uther recoils. Arthur laughs, a short, ironic bark, and Merlin, knowing what will happen now, leaves. He flees, in point of fact, everything inside him in a state of revolt, because he has had a taste again now, and it all wants to escape, and the feeling is so strong it churns his stomach and beats drums in his head, makes his pulse race and slow and race. He makes it to the stairwell before Arthur's chamber before he falls, gasping like a drunk on his last legs.

_Slowly_, he tells himself, as if this will help. _I'll do it slowly. I don't have to- don't have to stop any more, but please ... please stop hurting ..._ He even sounds pitiful to himself in his own head, but he's not sure he has any more strength to scrape up. He wonders if drowning men feel like this when they struggle for the last breath in their lungs, before air runs out and gives way to water.

'Merlin?' It takes him a while to realise the voice is not inside his head. Arthur sits down next to him, and the warmth of his body against Merlin's is like a bruise.

Merlin tries to roll away. Arthur catches him by the elbow, brings him up to his feet, hauls him up the stairs, and his touch, his life and proximity and _destiny_ ... the magic wrenches at Merlin, wanting to be let out _now_ but he doesn't know how to do it without _burning_ ...

Inside Arthur's rooms the prince presses Merlin up to the door, definite and gentle, and says, 'Come on, Merlin, you can let it go now,' and Merlin squirms.

'I can't,' he says, pleading. 'I- I can't- Arthur, I-'

'Why not?' Arthur demands. 'He's gone to the dungeons, to be burnt tomorrow, Gaius is freed-'

'I don't- I feel all-'

'_What_, Merlin? I'm tired of seeing you in pain.'

'I don't know _how_,' he says. 'Not safely ... you can't- you can't be here, Arthur, I've got to leave-'

'I'm not going anywhere,' Arthur says, low and sure and oh, the one thing Merlin and his warring errant magic agree on right now is Arthur and how he wants him, and Arthur must feel that with Merlin so tight under his hands, must _feel_ it ...

Arthur's mouth is tentative at the join of Merlin's lips, the corner where his skin fans out into the blush that's spreading over his face, and then gentle on his lower lip, just a press, slivered open so that the air in Arthur's lungs can reach Merlin's skin, and Merlin gasps, and suddenly everything in the room but them is levitating.

'Merlin,' Arthur breathes, and kisses him again, properly but still gently, and again, and again, ratcheting up the tension until the furniture is back on the ground and Merlin's knees have gone weak and that warmth that Merlin hasn't even known he's missed has eked its way back to his fingertips again. Very carefully, and outside Merlin's clothes, Arthur's hands are tracing the shape of him.

He doesn't dare touch, doesn't dare do anything except cling and hold to this unexpected anchor, but Arthur doesn't complain, doesn't try for anything more than kissing and moving, mapping Merlin's body with keen hands.

'Your eyes are golden,' Arthur whispers, and then slides a knee between Merlin's thighs. Merlin moans, long and drawn out, and with a flare and the flash of the sun catching on the edge of glass, his magic is back in place, unlocked and unfettered and warm, instead of burning, and he is on dry land again.


End file.
